From my experience, I will definitely recommend stopping at Manapouri when traveling to Milford Sound if you have time and keen to explore.
Stopping at Manapouri to explore Doubtful Sound or do some easy hiking will surely add to your New Zealand adventure experience.
We probably spent about two hours at Manapouri, and we then proceeded with our drive to Te Anau, where we will be sleeping over and then drive to Milford Sound the next morning.
The drive from Manapouri to Te Anau is 20 minutes. I was excited about being in Te Anau since it was my first time, and after Te Anau is Milford Sound, the place of my bucket list.
At Te Anau, we explored the Kepler hiking track 👣, there was showers of rain, but we continued with our hike, and the forest shedded from getting wet. Kepler track is one of the great tracks in New Zealand 🇳🇿, it is a 60km hiking track done over 2 or 3 days. I would like to do one of the great New Zealand hikes one day, but as for this time, we walked for about 2km and returned to explore another side of Kepler track 👣.